Sunday, February 27, 2011

Big Moves in Online Video: Ooyala Scores Yahoo! Japan

Last week Ooyala issued a major announcement that it has signed a multi-year agreement strategic relationship with Yahoo! Japan which will open up its access to 80 million users – the world's second Internet economy. Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher said that it's one of the largest, if not the largest industry deals at this point. Yahoo! Japan is the 12th most trafficked site in the world, and 1st for all Internet traffic in Japan – "about 60% of the Internet traffic in Japan today. The partnership paves the way for rapid evolution of the delivery, analysis and monetization of online video in the Japanese market." As far as video goes, Yahoo! Japan serves approximately 40% of its online video, about 200 million page views per day, and is growing 25% per year.

"Over time, Yahoo! Japan will standardize on Ooyala across all of its properties. They will leverage our advanced technologies for wide ranging video initiatives such as cross-platform video delivery, subscription, and advertising services. Yahoo! Japan will deliver rich video experiences on connected PCs, smartphones, tablets and ultimately TVs in the Japanese market."

Fulcher said that this deal is very complementary for both companies and Ooyala will help advance video delivery and monetization in Japan. Video is no longer just a business imperative, but a strategic imperative and the convergence is underway, as he says in this Ooyala video release:

"While it will take time to get Yahoo! Japan up to scale, I think this deal could bring in a substantial amount of revenue for Ooyala twelve months from now. By substantial I mean multi-millions, especially since Yahoo! Japan's stream count is in the billions each year."

Rayburn added that Ooyala is a "clearly a force to be reckoned with":

"In the online video platform space, the market is currently dominated by Brightcove, Ooyala and Kaltura in terms of market share. For some time I've thought that it would be very hard for any company to really give Brightcove a run for their money, but Ooyala seems to have really picked up a lot of momentum as of late and this deal is probably one of the largest seen in the OVP space."

Just a few months ago Ooyala raised a $22 million fourth round Series D funding which was used to build up its presence in Asia. Since its founding in 2007, Ooyala has raised $42 million and has 120 employees with corporate offices in Mountain View, California with offices in New York, London and a new office in Sydney and is working on Tokyo. Ooyala reaches over 50 million unique users a month via their player from their 500 media and non-media customers globally.

About Yahoo! Japan
Yahoo! Japan Corporation operates Yahoo! Japan, a search engine and online information portal. The company is based in Tokyo. Japanese telecommunications and web company SoftBank is Yahoo! Japan’s majority owner and the company is affiliated with US-based Yahoo!. Yahoo! Yahoo! Japan operates in a variety of divisions, including auction services, media development, Yahoo! BB broadband services, shopping and general business solutions. Users can also register for Yahoo! e-mail, personalized web pages, a social network (Yahoo! Days) and access to message boards.

About Me

I'm President and Founder of Online Video Publishing [dot] com, a new media consulting firm sharing strategies and best practices for online
video publishers. My videos and blog focus on the technologies, business and players in online video, streaming media, videoconferencing, collaboration and social media. I'm a 20+ year veteran of the enterprise video space
and award-winning producer of corporate and educational videos. In my
day job, I'm a video communications professional in a corporate
multimedia department and produce live and virtual events and webcasts. My background is in fine arts and technology and
I'm a long-time member of Canyon Cinema, Inc. and Filmmakers' Coop.
I'm also a 2009 Streaming Media All-Star, named by StreamingMedia.com,
and Co-Chair of the 2009 and 2010 Online Video Platform Summit. I'm
@klessblog on Twitter and on most of my social networks

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